Thursday, March 4, 2010

Alberto Ponno

I've been getting involved with some airbrush forums lately. I was cruising around YouTube trying to find myself some airbrush videos to watch in order to get ready to do some realistic flames with Auto Air paint on a motorcycle. I found this video by a guy named Tony D who runs this Airbrush Tricks website. That video really helped me out and I clicked the link to see if I could find out some more information. That's when I found The Airbrush Forum, which may well be one of the better airbrush forums on the internet. I've been doing my part to add whatever helpful information I can while learning a ton in the process.

Not everyone seems to feel that way. For some reason, when something is creative it collects egos. It's like art (all forms) is an ego fly trap and it's difficult to wade through all the garbage. I, myself, can get a little ego now and then, get my little arrogant feathers ruffled, but I'm aware of it and will usually apologize for my idiocy.

What this has to do with the price of Chinese food in China is that, for the most part, that airbrush forum is devoid of ego. Someone will trickle in with some interesting view points (I'm trying to keep this clean people) every now and then, but they don't last long. What will always amaze me, is when they do, and 27 people tell them "Hey, that was pretty douche-baggy what you said", they will still act as if they are perfectly innocent creatures. This sort of "world just doesn't understand me"type of, well, paranoia is a usual trait amongst the doucheetists.

Now, why that is important enough to warrant a blog posting that, for the most part, probably wont be read for a few months by anyone other than my wife, is this: I got an email from Alberto Ponno. Some of you may not know who this is, and that is why his name is all linkified, but some of you do and may be just as amazed as I am. He is, by far, one of the best airbrush artists in the world. I know, there are a lot of guys out there that have their favorites, but I'm serious when I say this again: he is one of the best in the entire world. Take a look at his work, I'll wait. Are you back? Pretty crazy right? Well, here is some more crazy, the man doesn't use anything but an airbrush. No pencil rough sketch, no trace outs, no stencils, no cut outs, no masking, no eraser, all freehand airbrush amazing goodness. He uses lacquer that you aren't legally supposed to spray here and his Passche, but that's it. That's all. Well, and a heap of talent and experience.

So this guy emailed me. At first, I seriously thought it was a joke. I'm just some guy in an apartment that can pull out a pretty nice airbrush painting every once in a while. Who was I to get an email from this guy? Do you know what he said? He thanked me for the kind words I'd said in a forum posting (which means he tracked my email down to write me) and that he liked my work. He, and this is amazing too, was just happy someone looked at his art. His English was a little choppy, but I'd heard worse out of people born here, so it was all good. I emailed him back with the help of Yahoo's Babel Fish, and figured that'd be it. I was humbled and amazed that he wrote, I saw that a great artist doesn't have to have an ego, and I was ready to airbrush the planet.

But then he emailed back. Here I was, all irked at some guy on a forum for being Mr. Ego, and I get another email from Alberto Ponno telling me that if I wanted to learn more about what he does, he'd be happy to share this knowledge. There was no link to a book coming out. There was no $Price$ for admission. This was an artist willing to share what he knows in a positive manner to another artist willing to learn it. One of the best airbrush artists in the world, willing to break it all down for another one.

Amazing.

That really showed me a few things. One: that you really don't need to be better than anyone in this game. Two: Italians are really as nice as people say they are. And Three: someone is your competition only if you make them out to be your competition. There just isn't any room for ego. If you want to be a better "than" artist, well, have at it. I just want to be a better artist.

About Me

I am a casual PC gamer. What does that mean? That means that while I enjoy a good PC game I don't have the money to enjoy it on a machine that can play the latest ones at the highest settings. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to enjoy these games and I know I'm not alone in this. It does mean, however, that I tend to play games that have been out for a year or more and often times I'm not playing those games maxed out. Bottom line? I like games. Even if I suck at them and need cheats to make it to the end.